For those of you who haven't read my article, I was mostly saying how Moen's intensity dropped down dramatically in the past few years and how he was stealing a spot for a young rookie on a 3rd or 4th line. With Rene Bourque out and Moen traded, now's a great time for Therrien to have rookie Jiri Sekac be part of his main roster as well as trying out players like Drayson Bowman (who just got called back yesterday) for example.
But enough of that, let's analyze Gonchar's play. The veteran defenseman has been out due to an injury since the beginning of the season. He got back in Dallas' line-up on November 4th. In three games this year, he managed to get one assist, a -1 rating, one shot on goal and three hits. Surely it is a pretty slow start, but let's not forget he just started skating about a week or so ago. Let's give him some time.
In his career, Sergei Gonchar managed to notch 219 goals and 579 assists for a total of 798 points in 1,256 games (including 102 powerplay goals and 321 powerplay assists, for a total of 423 powerplay points). At 40 years of age, we aren't expecting him to stay with Montreal for a lot of years. In fact, he will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this year. The reason why Bergevin traded for him is mostly to have another defenseman to help Subban and Markov on the powerplay. At first, we got told Tom Gilbert could do the job, but Marc Bergevin is known for acting quickly when things are not working out, and it's not a secret to anyone that Montreal's powerplay was really terrible.
Financially speaking, Gonchar will earn $5 million this year, while the Dallas Stars will retain 8% of his salary ($400,000, which brings the cap hit down to $4.6 million. Moen is earning $1.85 million for the next two seasons. Technically, Gonchar will cost $2.75 million more than Moen, but considering how Moen played this year (0 point in 9 games), I highly doubt Gonchar could do worst, especially with his background. It is also worth noting Bergevin tried to acquire him last summer.
We will have to wait and see if Gonchar's ankle injury, which kept him out of the line-up at the beginning of the season, will truly affect him in the long term. But as a personal opinion, I am really impressed with this trade and I honestly believe Montreal's powerplay will get back in business, especially right on time for the game against Boston Bruins this upcoming Thursday.
Do you like this trade?
Do you think Marc Bergevin will trade a defenseman for a forward now?
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13 comments:
After this stupid move, is it any clearer to habs fans how overrated a scouting director Trevor Timmins is..This is a direct result of his first rounders from 3-4 years ago Tinordi and Beaulieu not getting the job done..STILL. These guys werent just drafted recently either.
Good points there, the Habs also have a terrible power play because they thought Beaulieu was ready to take the pressure off of Subban and Markov, that hasnt happened obviously.
This team is so ovrrated, just because they have a decent record, the Eastern conference sucks, if you put Montreal in the West, they would likely finish anywhere from 8th to 12th out West.
So, based on your comments from the article, the Canadien's are paying More for a similarly useless player.
First of all, I would not qualify Beaulieu and Tinordi as "errors" just yet. Acquiring Gonchar might only be a ''wake-up call'' to both of them. They need to step up their game, that's a given. However, let's not forget this move has been made for pretty much this year only. I highly doubt we'll see Gonchar in Habs' line-up next year.
Now as for the overrated comment, let's just say the Canadiens have a pretty good record mostly due to Carey Price. I don't think they are so over rated. I just think they find a way to win. They also have a pretty young core group of players who will develop over the years. In 3 or 4 years, we will really be able to have a good opinion on wether Timmins did a good job or not.
But right now, we have to admit the team looks promising. Way more than it looked 5 or even 10 years ago...
"Paying more for a useless player". Moen still has another year to his contract while Gonchar is going UFA next season. Bergevin is BUILDING a team, he's not trying to win the Stanley Cup this year. By doing this move, he gets a player who can help the PP (which Moen could obviously not do) while freeing up some salary for next year. Which in both case is a pretty good move.
How many of the Habs moves on defense could have been avoided if they had only kept Ryan McDonagh?? Man that trade never gets old, wrahahaa.
Back in the days, no one could have known McDonagh would've become as solid as he is now. Would he really be that good nowadays if he had been developped by Montreal ? Maybe the problem is not really Timmins... maybe the problem was located elsewhere, as in their development team...
But I have to agree, that trade will always hurt a little bit !
why dont you idiots give him a chance HE IS A POWERPLAY GUY he iwill be a mentor to the kids and whoever said timmins suck should just go jump on the leafs bandwagon also the east has more cups then the west enough said
Let's calm down a bit everyone ! It's getting hot in here..! Ahah, but seriously, yes, Gonchar is an asset for the very-awful PowerPlay our Canadiens have this year. I actually think Timmins is not terrible. I just think the development staff was bad.
Yeah ok
That's why habs record in the west is 6-2. In addition they beat Detroit who used to be in the west.
Tell me how much suck again?
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, coasters, as well as experts are merely 1 trivial petri meal experiment. Simple inside that they can most assuredly not really acquire your Stanley Goblet.
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